Knoxville's Americana Revolution: East Tennessee’s largest city names its musical soul

Tennessee has long been renowned for its musical heritage from the banks of the Mississippi River where Memphis has the blues and Elvis to the rolling hills of Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry.

Knoxville also plans to make its own contribution to music lovers around the nation with Americana. Americana is that broad rootsy musical genre that can encompass everything from bluegrass to blues, folk to gospel, alternative country to alternative rock and roll. It is the antithesis of over-produced mainstream radio fodder. It is the anti-muzak. 

One notable strain of Americana originates in the Smoky Mountains. East Tennessee has a rich musical heritage in authentic American music and its big-city home is Knoxville. 

Knoxville radio stations have historically played an important role in bringing country and bluegrass music to the masses. In the 1920s, Knoxville radio station WNOX was an early and prominent proponent of “hillbilly” music. The station facilitated recording sessions starting in 1929 and began in 1936 a live noon-time radio program from the heart of the city called the Mid-day Merry-Go-Round. Country music luminaries such as Roy Acuff, Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters, Kitty Wells, Chet Atkins, Don Gibson and many other regional musicians found their first broad-based recognition on that influential show. Another live radio program, “The Tennessee Barndance,” was broadcast from downtown on Saturday evenings and was popular in the 1940s and ’50s. And no mention of East Tennessee music would be complete without acknowledging Dolly Parton, a native of neighboring Sevier County who made appearances on Knoxville broadcast media early in her career.

Today, Knoxville’s WDVX might be considered the contemporary WNOX. The celebrated radio station with an eclectic playlist operates from the heart of the city on four frequencies as well as the Internet. Its popular free “Blue Plate Special” musical performances have been broadcast live at noon on weekdays from the radio station’s studio for several years, and last summer the station added a monthly nighttime concert series to its musical offerings called “Tennessee Shines.”

WDVX is a listener-supported radio station that’s won the national title of Bluegrass Station of the Year four of the past six years at the Annual Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music Association Awards. The station’s playlist is hardly confined to bluegrass, however, branching off acoustically into the full range of Americana. 

Add to this a top-rate performance production company, two extraordinary theaters, other quality venues including a beautiful downtown park, and a revitalized downtown finally coming into its own.

Sounds like the makings for an Americana revolution with Knoxville front and center, making a spirited declaration of independence from slick pop music, choosing instead life, liberty and the pursuit of authentic aural happiness.

Tennessee Shines

“Tennessee Shines” is the newest element of Knoxville’s Americana revolution. Broadcast live on the last Wednesday of the month from Knoxville’s Bijou Theatre, an acoustically blessed performance space that’s nearly a century old, “Tennessee Shines” offers more than two hours of Americana music for the agreeable ticket price of $10 in advance/$15 at the door. 

The show is hosted by Grammy Award-winning Americana singer/songwriter Jim Lauderdale. Lauderdale, who also hosts the annual Americana Honors and Awards Ceremony at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, lauds Knoxville’s fresh slice of Americana. 

“We’re starting to see the city and the region become really energized in this realm of authentic American music,” said Tony Lawson, WDVX founder and general manager. “It’s very exciting and it’s something that gives fans a chance to interact. It’s not something beyond them. It’s something they can almost reach out and touch. It’s real. That’s what’s so exciting about it. Seeing people get turned on by real stuff.” 

Lawson knows where such East Tennessee “real stuff” is to be found. Raised in the mountains of Campbell County, Tennessee, near the Kentucky state line, Lawson has been in radio broadcasting for 30 years. The amiable music lover has gradually moved southward from his native home, shepherding WDVX from its earliest days operating out of a 14-foot camper in rural Anderson County some 20 miles north of the city to its still small, but much nicer digs in downtown Knoxville.

“Tennessee Shines” features the same kind of talented Americana musicians as those who have played the “Blue Plate Special,” ranging from top-rank popular artists to those with names none but the most astute Americana aficionados might know. Thus far, in addition to mainstay Jim Lauderdale, the “Tennessee Shines” stage has been graced by the likes of the SteelDrivers, the Jerry Douglas Band, The Biscuit Burners, The Red Stick Ramblers, Cherryholmes, Shawn Camp, Carrie Rodriguez, and Knoxville’s own, the everybodyfields. 

Though WDVX’s Lawson certainly has his own musician contacts to draw upon, “Tennessee Shines” is produced by another Knoxville music force to be reckoned with — AC Entertainment. AC Entertainment is the namesake music promotion and production company of Ashley Capps, who was born and raised in Knox County. Capps’ early work as a DJ and music club owner gradually developed the music promotion activities he’d engaged in over the years into an organization capable of handling everything from booking and promotion to facility management and performance production. He now presides over an enterprise that manages Knoxville’s two premier historic theaters — the Bijou and the Tennessee. In fact, he books, promotes, and produces shows for venues all over the South including Asheville, N.C.’s Thomas Wolfe Auditorium and The Orange Peel and Atlanta’s Variety Playhouse. He operates      concertwire.com to facilitate ticket sales and concert information for the shows the company promotes and handles production and promotion for Knoxville’s Sundown in the City summer concert series. Oh yeah — he also happens to co-produce a little thing called the Bonnaroo Music Festival held every summer in Manchester, Tenn.

“The concept has always been to celebrate the indigenous culture of this region,” Capps said. “WDVX does that. It performs a really valuable symbolic role out there in the world. One of the most powerful trends in radio broadcasting in recent years has been these radio stations that represent a sense of place. WDVX does that for East Tennessee.” 

“Tennessee Shines” host Jim Lauderdale not only makes everyone feel welcome and smoothly keeps the rhythm of the show. He also joins in on some pickin’ and singin’. 

Lauderdale, who was raised in North Carolina, says that he gained an appreciation for WDVX from listening to the station on trips back home to Flat Rock, N.C., from his current home in Nashville. 

“I discover some good, new artist just about every time I drive through,” he says.

That plus his tremendous respect for Lawson and Capps made Lauderdale feel sure the live midweek shows would be successful and a pleasure to be a part of. 

“It’s great for local folks and folks in the region to be able to attend for such a low ticket price and such a high value,” Lauderdale says. “We’re booking some outstanding talent. We’re also trying to feature someone local at every show so it’s a great showcase for local performers. And for me, the AC Entertainment staff is wonderful. They take care of all the details and make for a smooth, well-organized operation.”

Downtown Knoxville Revitalization

Though East Tennessee’s musical heritage and Knoxville’s music media and music promotion may provide the talent and business acumen to energize the city’s Americana revolution, it may not have been feasible without the revitalization of downtown Knoxville that’s taken place over the past five years. 

Flashback a dozen years. Except for the occasional shows at a deteriorated Tennessee Theatre and limited tourist interest in a couple of historically significant buildings, downtown Knoxville offered little to entice many people to visit, much less live in the heart of the city. The Old City, a historic downtown commercial center that had been redeveloped with much fanfare, was not living up to its promise. Market Square, another redeveloped historic area downtown, was languishing. And other than one or two well-established watering holes like the Great Southern Brewing Co. (now Downtown Grill & Brewery), the city’s main Gay Street corridor was hardly a lively place when the sun went down. Downtown housing was almost nonexistent. An alarming number of ugly, old buildings with crumbling walls and boarded-up windows blighted the cityscape.

There were a few bright spots on the horizon about this time, however. The Historic Tennessee Theatre Foundation formed and AC Entertainment was contracted to manage the theater and book events for it. Also, WDVX officially went on the air, and Lawson and Capps first started dreaming about the potential for an Americana revolution in Knoxville. 

In 2003, downtown revitalization began in earnest after the election of current Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam. Haslam made it the focus of his attention. Though many in both government and private sectors have been instrumental in the city’s rebuilding, few would deny the mayor’s crucial role in turning things around downtown. Working with city administrators and the local business community, Haslam found money through tax increment financing and other methods to help make investment a safer proposition. And he’s put his money where his mouth is by investing his own money downtown.  

Today, the Old City and Market Square thrive with new restaurants, bars, funky retail shops, and a free summer concert series that draws thousands to its bandstand. WDVX’s studio is in the heart of the city on Gay Street, where there’s also a Mast General Store. The Tennessee Theatre has been beautifully restored to its former glory, as has the Bijou Theatre, which was on the verge of foreclosure just three years ago when it needed major repairs. Other downtown retail space is under development. There’s also a 2,000-seat movie theater complex, a project for which the mayor ponied up $2 million of his own money when initial funding for the project fell short.

But perhaps the most significant element of downtown revitalization has been the residential development that has people actually living downtown and taking advantage of the music venues and businesses. Some 2,000 new urbanites have moved downtown in the past few years as vacant old buildings have been restored to become hip, new condominiums.

It was during the first few years of this continuing downtown renaissance that local entrepreneur Laurens Tullock brought together several Knoxville media and entertainment professionals for serious discussion about how East Tennessee’s musical heritage could best be preserved and celebrated in and around Knoxville. Two of those people were Tony Lawson and Ashley Capps. Another was Ed Spray, past president of Knoxville-based Scripps Networks. 

These Knoxville media mavericks and others established the non-profit Knoxville Americana Music Foundation. According to Spray, now president of KAMF, the three general purposes of the organization are to promote Americana music in the region, establish ongoing media exposure for the music, and support WDVX, recognized by all parties as the lynchpin for the whole endeavor. 

“Knoxville is a major city in the Appalachian community and the downtown has really come alive in recent years,” notes Spray. “It also is a place with a history in the development of early country music. We think it’s right to have something in the Americana genre that is generated here in the heart of Appalachia and broadcast around the country. We’re going to do everything we can to make Knoxville the center for Americana music.” 

An Americana Future

While WDVX and its special “Tennessee Shines” and “Blue Plate Special” shows have been offering Knoxville’s most frequent paeans to Americana roots music, the city has other venues that feature Americana musicians on a regular basis. Performers are often found at Barley’s Taproom & Pizzeria, Patrick Sullivan’s Steakhouse and Saloon and Manhattan’s Bistro & Bar — all in the Old City — as well as the World Grotto in Market Square and other clubs. The AC Entertainment-managed Bijou often has Americana artists performing and even the magnificent Tennessee Theatre, typically offering more elaborate musical and theatrical productions, gets the likes of John Prine and Lucinda Williams from time to time. 

Another Americana asset, the Laurel Theater, sits about a mile or so from downtown. The theater, a restored 19th century church, has become a community performance space. It regularly presents traditional musicians and is home to Jubilee Community Arts, a regional cultural center dedicated to preserving traditional Southern Appalachian arts. The organization also publishes digital recordings of traditional music under its Jubilee Records label. 

In the surrounding region, plenty of small clubs offer quality mountain music and Appalachian music festivals all over East Tennessee, mostly in the autumn. Capps and Lawson envision an Americana music festival in Knoxville. 

“I’m optimistic that an Americana music festival will see fruition in the relatively near future,” Capps says. “We really want to see something that also encompasses the other venues we have downtown that can host really good, authentic American music. We also would like to expand it to incorporate Southern food traditions and Southern art traditions. So, there are a lot of opportunities to expand the concept of what Tennessee Shines is all about. What we hope to do with it is to expand on this celebration of sense of place that WDVX represents and give it a reality that people all over the world can experience.” 

 There’s no doubt WDVX and its “East Tennessee’s Own” trademarked catchphrase is no secret beyond Appalachia. It has been acknowledged on PBS’s “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” and “ABC World News Tonight,” as well as in print publications including The New York Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Boston Globe, and No Depression, the revered and recently resurrected chronicle of alt-country music. Oxford American magazine called WDVX “probably the best radio station in the world.” The Internet has greatly expanded WDVX’s international reputation, where there are lots of folks craving authentic American music. 

The partners in Knoxville’s new live broadcast hope “Tennessee Shines” will be syndicated by radio stations all over the region and on satellite radio. Each two-hour performance provides material for two hour-long live radio shows for syndication. Given the quality of the music, the reputations of WDVX and AC Entertainment, and the enthusiasm of area music lovers, syndication isn’t a long shot.

“I’m very grateful for the local people who recognize our Appalachian culture as a valuable natural resource,” says Lawson. “I think the culture adds to community building, community development. It’s a much needed element for building and rejuvenating a community like we’re doing here in Knoxville. Having said that, I see this project growing as the city grows. That’s very encouraging to me.”